


I Can Fix This

by Okadiah



Series: Symbrock Thanos Snap Quartet [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Angst, But there's a happy conclusion now!, I couldn't stop myself again, I'm Sorry, The Thanos Snap, Venom/MCU Crossover, yay!, you know what's coming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2019-08-26 05:24:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16675342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Okadiah/pseuds/Okadiah
Summary: Thanos snapped, and no one was left unaffected. Not even Eddie and Venom.Version 2EDIT: HAPPY CONCLUSION ADDED





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, hi everyone I'm back and here to dish out more angst. We can thank people like Shakari and mydoggoesnom for taking what little self-restraint I have and tossing it out the window. I was already playing with the idea of all the ways the Snap could have played out and I needed *very little* encouragement.
> 
> Here's version 2. I hope you enjoy!

**_I'm going to do it._ **

_Don't do it._

**_I'm doing it._ **

Eddie sighed as Venom ignored his warnings and prepared.

_I'm warning you, Vee. She's going to murder you._

**_Well, she'll murder_ ** **you _. I don't know about me._**

_Who's always about the 'we'?_ Eddie snorted as he stepped around a small crowd of people in line for a ride while Anne and Dan walked beside them. _If she kills me, she kills you, remember?_

**_I'll just jump to another host,_** Venom retorted as he manifested a thin tendril out of Eddie's wrist, waiting until the moment was perfect. **_She couldn't kill me then._**

_You'd abandon me for a cookie?_

Venom snickered. **_If the cookie was worth it, yeah._**

Venom felt Eddie roll his eyes, but his human still edged closer to Anne. _Thanks. I feel the love there, pal._

They were at one of those strange festivals Eddie liked to visit when there was time, and since Earth was his new home now, and the humans here were so ... strange with their entertainment and customs and odd conception of art, Venom couldn't help but secretly enjoy. It was all so fascinating and unfamiliar, with the people and the colors and the smells.

But what he loved most were the foods. All the glorious, intense, greasy, oily wonderful foods.

And Anne had a freshly made deep-fried Oreo. And Venom had never had a deep-fried Oreo before.

_You're playing with fire, Vee,_ Eddie said again. _I'm warning you. She takes her Oreos seriously._

**_I'm not afraid._ **

Eddie glanced up at the blue sky of this perfect day wistfully. _I remember thinking that, once._

Venom snickered again, ignoring the memories Eddie helpfully sent his way to instead make some of his own. He wanted that deep-fried cookie, and deep down he could feel that Eddie wanted it too. And unlike Eddie who had hang-ups with stealing from his ex, Venom not so much. She'd understand. This was all about educating him after all. He _was_ a newcomer on this planet. His new home.

And Venom _needed_ to know what that cookie tasted like.

**_Closer, Eddie,_** Venom pressed. **_Distract her!_**

Eddie sighed but a ray of amusement filtered through their shared blood. Excitement grew in Venom.

"Hey, Anne. Dan. Did you know there's some live music over there?" Eddie pointed toward a small pavilion which had been set up nearby. A concert was scheduled for later and the stage was empty, but a crowd was already forming. "I heard they're supposed to be pretty good."

"Yeah, I heard that too," Anne said as she turned toward them, the cookie moving into range. "Though I guess you and Venom won't be big fans of it."

Eddie shrugged. "So long as we don't get too close it's fine. We'll probably linger back here—"

**_Now!_ **

Just as Anne glanced away, Venom struck like a viper, snatching the cookie away. The Oreo smelled like success and tasted like warm, sweet victory as he shoved the treat into his mouth. Anne's head whipped back, blond hair flying as she glared.

"Venom!"

Venom grinned as he quickly chomped on the cookie, mashing it before swallowing it down.

**"It** **_was_ as good as it smelled."**

"Oh, she's going to kill you now," Dan said, backing away. Eddie smiled as he also leaned out of the danger zone.

"Told you, Vee."

A hand wrapped around Venom's tentacle and jerked it forward where Anne glowered disdainfully.

"That was _mine_ , you little parasite."

Venom's grin displayed every tooth. **"You want it back?"**

The look of disgust she gave him was worth the parasite comment, and both he and Eddie roared with laughter.

"You're both assholes. You deserve each other," Anne said as she crossed her arms. "But since you stole my Oreo, you owe me another one. One I expect to be whole and uneaten—"

A gasp broke out of Dan's mouth, interrupting her, and they all turned to watch Dan's eyes widened. His color seemed to fade like a wave was passing through him, and he lifted a hand toward Anne.

"Anne—"

Disbelief swelled and compounded within them as they watched Dan ... vanish. Turn to dust. Eddie glanced at Venom, but all Venom could do was mentally shrug back. He had no idea what had happened.

Anne stared, motionless. "Dan?"

That's when the screaming started.

All around them what had happened to Dan was happening to almost everyone else as the strange wave of colorlessness spread, causing people to fall in clumps of dust. Car horns blared in the distance, people began running and shouting, panicking with every second.

"Vee?" Eddie demanded as adrenaline fed into their blood. But there was something different about the sensation, and if there was anything Venom knew intimately it was Eddie's body. Its biochemistry and inner workings. Something was wrong. Something was off.

"Dan?" Anne said again as she took a disjointed half-step toward where Dan had been before glancing back at them as if they might have the answer. Then her eyes widened in alarm. "Eddie!"

Eddie involuntarily held his breath, and if they'd had separate hearts, Venom would have wondered whose would have plummeted first.

Eddie's elbow had gone grey, and Venom felt it the moment it started to disintegrate.

Instinctive reaction had Venom throwing himself at the spot, cutting off the infection and remaking what had started to vanish, and to their initial relief, it worked. Eddie was whole again. Color bled back into him. He was fine.

But then Venom felt more spots like Eddie's elbow begin to fray and fade across his host's entire body, and dread replaced everything in Venom's world.

"What's—?"

The symbiote didn't respond, not when his focus shifted entirely to saving Eddie. The bits of him that were fading away he replaced and remade with his own matter, feeding and feeding and feeding into Eddie's vanishing body. And like with the elbow it worked briefly before the flaking appeared somewhere else, as if attacking wherever Venom wasn't. It was a fight on all fronts for Venom because it was happening everywhere across Eddie.

And Venom didn't need Eddie's terror, horror, realization to know that it wasn't working. Whatever this was was attacking Eddie, even if Venom was left alone, but the more he fixed Eddie, the less there was of him to keep fighting. Venom was shrinking, dwindling, fighting as hard as he could but it was getting harder and harder to maintain the fronts. To rebuild Eddie. To heal him.

**_I can fix this,_** Venom snarled to himself, pushing harder and refusing to give in to whatever was happening. He couldn't afford to. Not for a single instant or it would take his human. **_I can fix this!_**

"Venom, no!"

Panic howled through Eddie as he stumbled and shook, heart racing as the human gripped at himself as if to reach for Venom, but Venom wasn't having it. Not now, not until Eddie was safe.

"Venom, stop!” Eddie yelled. “You need to stop!"

**_No!_** Venom roared back as he kept pushing more of himself into his host, fighting back against this unseen attack. **_You're my host, Eddie. I protect_ you _. I’m not going to lose you. I'm not going to stop!_**

"You're going to kill yourself if you don't!"

**_I don’t care!_ **

Venom wasn't paying attention to anything that didn't have to do with saving Eddie. The edges of his host were furiously fighting against his efforts, pressing and pressing, demanding more of his symbiote mass, and Venom relentlessly fed it. But even as he did, even as he snarled and raged against this unseen force, even as he pushed it back with everything he had, Venom knew if this lasted much longer he was going to lose this battle. He was running out of mass. He couldn't keep up with the amount of healing demanded of him.

And with a start, he realized he'd already spent too much of himself. The attack wasn't stopping, nothing was stopping. One of Eddie's arms and both of his legs up to the knees were gone, and it was all Venom could do to maintain what was left. Eddie huffed, but the strange weakness taking him was also numbing him, weakening all of his emotional responses except for the strongest ones.

And the strongest ones were realization. Fear. Despair.

Sorrow.

It was then that Venom realized where Eddie had struggled so hard to get to. Massive speakers stood like ominous sentries beside them, and Eddie was half draped over the soundboard. The one hand that remained reached for the volume dial.

**_Don't you dare!_** Venom roared. **_Don't you dare, you pathetic waste of a human! We're going to get through this. We're going to survive._** Venom threw everything he had left into forcing Eddie's vanishing body back into existence. **_Eddie,_ I can fix this _!_**

Venom felt sadness trickle through what remained of Eddie, and to Venom's surprise, his human smiled tenderly before he put his hand on the dial.

"You can't, Vee. And I'm not going to let you kill yourself trying." Venom felt Eddie's will harden like a stone in their chest, and with a jerk of his wrist, Eddie threw the sound on as high as he could. "Goodbye, Venom."

**_Eddie, no!_ **

In a last-ditch effort, Venom tried to use what was left of his matter to _force_ Eddie's hand away, but he couldn't. After all the struggle healing Eddie, just trying to keep him here and alive, he wasn’t strong enough. If he expended anymore, he _would_ die with Eddie, and it would be worth it.

But Eddie didn't give him the chance.

Sound blared, shocking every sense Venom had, overwhelming him with almost no effort at all. If he had been stronger, if he had had a better grip on Eddie, if this wasn't happening, such a sound wouldn't have been so effective. It would've hurt, sure, but they'd endured worse together. They'd bared it, and they'd walked it off.

This time Venom didn't have the strength to cling, and by its own nature, what little was left of itself collected and was forcefully flung off. It didn't fly far though, only plopped and rolled to the ground a few feet away, but it was enough. Eddie had turned off the dial, the sound wasn't there anymore, but it didn't matter now. What work Venom had thrown into keeping Eddie alive seemed to have the opposite effect now, because when Venom finally had enough of its faculties back to look, to move, to do _anything_ , Eddie was all but gone.

All that was left by then was Eddie's pinched but relieved face as he looked at Venom. And then it was gone too.

In its natural form like it was, there was no blood to drain from its veins to leave it cold. There was no external emotion to heighten the strength of its own. There was only itself, weak and feeble. Vulnerable and alone.

Yet it still somehow had the strength to give a soundless wail as it crawled as quickly as it could to the dark dust that had once been Eddie Brock.

**_Eddie,_** it screamed, terror ruling its mind. **_Eddie, you pathetic loser, what are you doing?_** Weak, tiny tendrils curled through the dust, desperately trying to keep it all together, to find some hint of its host still in it. Still ... still _there_ so it could rebond with Eddie and fix this. **_Eddie!_**

But it wasn't working. It couldn't feel Eddie. It couldn't feel him anywhere, and the more it touched and moved the dust, the more the dust filtered away into the breeze. It snarled at the wind, pain and agony turning it vicious and violent, but it didn't give up. It _couldn't_ give up!

Eddie couldn't be gone.

The wooden platform under it thudded hard with thunderous and rapid footsteps that stopped right behind it.

"Eddie?" Anne breathed, face pained and horrified as she stared down at the dust. "Venom?"

Venom barely noticed her, not with the loss of Eddie. Not with the suffocation slowly hardening its body and killing it. It didn't matter though. This was Eddie, this dust was Eddie, and if it could somehow collect it all together, bind it all together _maybe_ it could bring him back. _Maybe_ it could still save him.

But its sense of self was fading. Its awareness was darkening as all the fight it had left seeped out with every second that passed. It was dying, and if it had never met Eddie, never bonded with Eddie, it wouldn't have thought twice about the death of a host. Would already be searching for a new one.

Instead, Venom didn't want to leave. Not Eddie. Not its host.

Better to die together, it supposed, even if it was separated like this.

"Venom!"

Something slammed down on its slick form, and the presence of a new host shocked it as it took the equivalent of a violent, desperate, involuntary breath of air. The darkness which had clouded its vision cleared, energy rushed in like a heady wave, and for the briefest moment it thought Eddie was back. That whatever had happened had been a miserable, horrible blip on the radar, and Eddie was _back_ and Venom would be _damned_ if it would ever let him go again.

But as the symbiosis took and Venom all but threw itself into the melding, it quickly realized this wasn't Eddie. That any faint familiarity it had with this host was because it _knew_ this host and had taken her once before. But Anne wasn't Eddie, and although her emotions fed it, although her body could sustain it, although she was a friend ....

Anne wasn't Eddie. And Eddie hadn't come back.

**_Eddie,_** Venom cried, reaching for the dust that had once been its host, even as the symbiosis continued with Anne. ** _Eddie!_**

"He's gone," Anne said as she collapsed to her knees, stunned and breathless. "Eddie, Dan, everyone. They're all gone."

But Venom wasn't listening to her. It kept staring at the spot Eddie had been, reaching futilely for the dust that was fading away and it knew with certainty that Eddie wasn't coming back.

And Venom hadn't been able to stop it.

It masked Anne, melding completely, sharing with her all the pain and agony and loss it was experiencing as well, and they screamed.


	2. Conclusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's this piece's conclusion! It was fun playing with Venom's pronouns as Venom switches hosts. I hope you enjoy!

If she and Anne hadn't all but jumped at the opportunity to take a bite out of Thanos with the rest of the Avengers, Venom would have been on her way back to San Francisco the _moment_ everyone who’d died returned. The Hulk had managed to snap the rest of the universe back into existence and after _five years_ without Eddie ... well, much as she wanted to see him _right now,_ she hadn't been able to resist the opportunity for a bit of justified revenge. _Anne_ wouldn't let her leave for anything less.

So they'd fought, ravaging the battlefield, consuming Thanos' forces if it meant that monster would suffer even a little for everything he'd put them through. Ideally, they'd have like to kill Thanos themselves, but beggars couldn't be choosers, and there were a lot of people trying for the same thing.

_I just want him to die, and for us to survive this_ , Anne told her. _Killing him would be great, but—_

**_Eddie,_** Venom said, mind focused.

_And Dan. And everyone_ , Anne replied, and in this, they were in complete agreement. Revenge would be sweet, but not at the price of never seeing their loved ones again.

That didn't mean they _didn't_ enjoy it when they came within inches of biting Thanos' head off. They did manage to get a hand, though. She and Anne had mentally high-fived as they'd chomped and chomped before swallowing the limb down right in front of the Titan's face.

Oh, the look Thanos had given them. Venom would _never_ forget it. It was a clear moment of pride she’d keep with her the rest of her life.

But the moment the fight had ended as Thanos' forces faded away into the same dust that had taken everything the rest of them had ever loved, when it was _over_ and the phone calls came and she saw Eddie's name on the caller ID for the first time in five years, Venom didn't hesitate. She made Anne pick up the phone.

"Hey, Anne, I don't know what's going on, but Venom—where's—?"

All Venom could do was scream. **"Eddie!"**

And then she surged through the phone, leaving the battlefield and Anne behind before launching itself at Eddie through his cellphone's speaker. Eddie was startled, confused terror filling his eyes which Venom took no offense at, seeing as how it was only after The Snap that it and Anne had found out it could move through cell phones. It had been a useful skill on a handful of missions with the Avengers.

Now it got Venom to its _real_ host faster, and that was all that mattered.

"Venom!" Eddie yelped before he fell back onto grass, and all Venom could do as the symbiosis took hold was bask in the feel of _Eddie_. In his body, in his emotions, in his thoughts, and how Venom could see that the very first thought Eddie had had after coming back was about _him._ That the human had been terrified that something had happened to _him_.

**"Eddie!"** Venom all but sobbed as he used his mass to curl around Eddie tight. **"You're back!"** He scowled at him and shook him for good measure. **"I'm _never_ going to let you anywhere near a speaker again!"**

"Vee," Eddie said, face breaking as Venom shared all the memories of the past five years he spent alone with Anne. How Anne had been the stronger of them, how he had had to struggle and suffer with Eddie's loss worse than anything he'd _ever_ experienced in all his existence. Eddie’s voice when he spoke next, was devastated. " _Venom_."

**"Shut up,"** Venom snapped before his own face broke. **"Just shut up."**

And Venom made sure his human did by kissing him and forcing him silent.

Unlike the last time he'd kissed Eddie all those years ago, Eddie didn't freeze or resist, not even for a moment. Venom wasted no time dominating his mouth and making damn sure that Eddie knew how much he'd missed him, how much he'd needed _him_. These last five years had been the worst of his life, and even the memories and emotions he shared just couldn't come close enough to how painful it had been to watch Eddie fade away, and the hopelessness that his life with Anne had been as he'd struggled to 'move on'.

There hadn't been any 'moving on'. Not without Eddie.

And that, at least, he was sure he made Eddie understand.

**"I'm not _ever_ going to leave you again, Eddie," **Venom vowed when he pulled away, even as the rest of him clung to the human, shuddering at how close this had been to failing. To never happening. How Venom would have given _anything_ up just for this one more time. **"Not for Thanos. Not for the world. Not for Anne or Dan or anyone. And _definitely_ not for a cookie."**

Eddie laughed, but there was something strained in his laughter that died completely as he clung to Venom for all he had, and Venom, for the first time in five years, felt like things were finally right again.

**Author's Note:**

> Same deal as version 1. I don't like leaving a story on a low point so I'll be writing the reunion after the next Avengers movie. So let's all think of this piece as TBC until then too. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> You can follow me for more of my Venom content on [my tumblr](https://symbrock-darling.tumblr.com/). I'm taking prompt requests there too, so if you have one, feel free to send an ask!


End file.
